University of Mary Washington College of Business

Officially founded on July 1, 2010, the new UMW College of Business will build on the Mary Washington tradition of a well-rounded undergraduate program in the liberal arts, with small classes that encourage direct interaction with its expert faculty. As other schools of business are just discovering the value of a solid grounding in the liberal arts for tomorrow’s leaders, our undergraduate business program has been, and will remain, firmly rooted in its liberal arts foundation. Our graduate programs have from their inception been devoted to providing a solid academic core curriculum and innovative programming designed to meet the changing needs of the next generation of business leaders in the Fredericksburg region. We intend to continue both these long standing traditions.

UMW has a long history of teaching business-related subjects, dating back to 1919 when the Virginia State Board responsible for the four Normal Schools in Virginia, decided that the Fredericksburg campus would specialize in “commercial” subjects. We graduated our first business “teacher” in 1924, the same year we began offering commercial courses in the evening to “interested townspeople”.

Since the 1920′s Business has been an integral part of Mary Washington, evolving as the school did from primarily preparing teachers to preparing future leaders in a wide variety of fields. In the late thirties and early fourties, the Commercial Education major gained National recognition, as the first program to require all majors to have real business experience before they could graduate. Currently, our undergraduate internships and graduate externships, while not required, continue this legacy.